In many electric vehicles including plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles, a vehicle battery is charged from a utility power source such as a public or private outlet that receives electricity from an electric utility. A charging cable is used to connect the vehicle utility power source to the vehicle battery.
Charging cables connect a charging system in the electric vehicle to utility power. Once connected, the vehicle charging system typically begins charging the vehicle battery until the battery is completely charged. To reduce costs, a user may wait to plug in a vehicle until utility rates are reduced, such as during the night time, but this is likely to cause situations where the vehicle is not charged when the user forgets, or is unable to plug in the charging cable at the appropriate time.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a charging cable for convenient charging of the vehicle battery at the reduced utility rates. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.